This story confirms a long held suspicion of mine around beauty standards and women; namely that women being thin is less about being healthy and more about us being small and taking us less space.
Yes, men have more testosterone and that does lead to more muscle development.
As a woman with lipedema, I’ve long had more fat on my body. This means most forms of exercise, even pure cardio leads to more muscle development rather than weight loss. I do lose weight, but can only lose a small amount, running 5 miles leads to me gaining weight, mostly in the form of muscle. I’ve seen many strong, tall, muscular women be fat shamed. At my martial arts school I once watched a 250 lb woman spend 9 hours in a grueling black belt test, and she had the endurance to spar 50 people in a row back to back in the last two hours. She was in amazing shape, yet society will only see her as fat, many people can’t comprehend the fact a woman that large, that muscular, is anything but fat at that weight.
People prize not necessarily health in women, but small, thin women who don’t take up space and can easily be over powered. Strength is turned into fat and considered ugly.